December 1967 'WBA Heavyweight Rankings'

Interesting!

 

Those rankings would put Potvetkin at #1.

Nah, seriously, green Frazier and shot Patterson, along with Blevel contenders in Bonavena and Quarry, and they actually got 4 that would be in todays top 50.

 

Well big f***ing woopie Senor.
The WBA, once a viable indicator of rankings was going downhill by the late 60's, as far as accurate rankings went.
Look at the rankings.
Jerry had wins over Patterson and Machen.
Jimmy had just beaten Martin (a better fighter than your Spencer)
and a December beatdown on Oscar.
Floyd? No comment needed. Stop denigrating an ATG.
Corletti? By this time the WBA liked to burst new contenders onto the scene, sometimes without proper credentials.
Smokin' Joe? comeon!!! He beat Oscar in '66.
Karl was on the downside after the Oscar beatdown.
Ramos? I'm still trying to find something about this 'beaner' (easy, my wife is from Mexico City and I love her and my beloved in-laws) except that he 'rocked' Joe in the first round in their scrap.
Ziggie? Gimme a break, white toast....
RING obviously had a h**d on for your boy after the Terrell bout (gosh Senor, that certainly is a victory that ranks with the all-time great ones. :rofl
OK!!! He's the #1 contender...and?...still young, with all those skills you've referenced (and bored) us with for the last few weeks. Let's move on to 1968...Quarry beat down and...not another win! Go bury your Thad arguments, they're dead.

 

Great to know that WBA once ranked Joe Frazier below Eduardo Corletti. I guess their reign of disaster in the heavyweight division does not only extend to the past decade.

I now also have an argument to use that the guy Frazier blew out in the first round was not a complete bum:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUoKtvtBFcY[/ame]


He had a top 10 ranking!

 

Frazier wasn't green and Patterson wasn't shot.
Not in today's top 50? Get a brain young uninformed youngster atsch

 

I don't hate you, just trying to find out what makes your Ali-hating mind tick and why you spend hours trumpeting contenders that never made it. You seem to be an Ali hate monger.
I've never attacked you, just your strange insights.

 

Frazier said in his autobiography that the WBA punished him for not participating in their tournament by dropping his ranking.

 

This is true. There is a Ring Magazine photo of Frazier holding a telephone with a sly grin on his face. The caption reads: "Joe Frazier cries copiously upon learning of his demotion to number 7 in the WBA ratings following his refusal to participate in the WBA tourney." The accompanying story centers around the demotion. This demotion was not taken seriously by anyone. Ring Magazine had rated Frazier as their number 1 contender beginning with the Sept. 1967 issue - the rating being the result of his 4-round TKO over George Chuvalo the previous July.

 

I think Ring Magazine Rankings might give a better look at things. Lets take a look at those.

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Muhammad Ali, Champion

Ernie Terrell
Floyd Patterson
George Chuvalo
Karl Mildenberger
Zora Folley
Amos Lincoln
Thad Spencer
Doug Jones
Hubert Hilton
Brian London

So, from that list, Ali beat #1-5 and #10 during his 1st title reign, and had already beaten #8. So, he had a title reign of 3 years and one month, during which he had 9 fights. 1 of those fights was the rematch with Liston. So 6 of the remaining 8 fights he had were against guys rated in the Ring's top 10 for 1965. Not a lot of time for ducking there.

Lets see what we see when we look at '66.

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Ernie Terrell
Zora Folley
Thad Spencer
Floyd Patterson
Karl Mildenberger
Joe Frazier
Oscar Bonavena
George Chuvalo
Johnny Persol
Manuel Ramos

Some shakeups here, but out of the top 10, Ali would beat #s 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 during his title reign. After returning, he beat #6 2 times out of 3, and beat 7. So total for his career he has 7 out of the Ring's top 10 for 66, 5 of those during the his nine fight title reign.

Lets take a look at 67.

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: (by the time this came out, Ali was about to be sent into exile)

Muhammad Ali, Champion

Joe Frazier
Thad Spencer
Jimmy Ellis
Manuel Ramos
Jerry Quarry
Oscar Bonavena
Floyd Patterson
Hector Eduardo Corletti
Karl Mildenberger
Ernie Terrell

Hey, your boy Corletti finally made it in, just before Ali was denied the ability to fight for 3 years! Anyway, this list still has 3 guys that Ali defended against during his title reign, and 4 that he beat after his return.

Please tell me again, where's the avoiding and ducking? It's physically impossible for any champion to fight every challenger. Ali had 9 fights during his reign, one of which was spoken for as a rematch with Liston. 6 of the remaining 8 (Terrell, Chuvalo, Patterson, Mildenberger, Folley, London) were against guys ranked in the Ring's top 10 during his title reign. The remaining ones were a rematch against Cooper, who knocked him down before he became champion, so he went out to thrash Cooper again, and Cleveland Williams.

With a defense record like that, what the **** is there to complain about?

 

Which of these fighters had a chance of beating Wlad or Vitali? Folley,Terrell,Bonavena,Chuvalo,London,Cooper,Floyd.

 

Folley, while a very good technician, probably doesn't have a chance due to size differences. He might give them something to think about for a few rounds, but that's it.

Terrell would pose some technical problems, because he was very good at the old "jab and grab" strategy, plus he's a tall guy with a decently long reach. A fight between him and Wlad would be deadliest to the audience, though, and likely rack up quite the casualty list from people being bored to death.

Chuvalo has a legit chance at getting inside the jab of Wlad and doing serious damage. Make no mistake, Chuvalo can punch; he got 64 of his 73 wins by KO. Wlad would be best served by staying on his bicycle and staying away, cause while Chuvalo had feet that were slow as molasses, he's tough, can take everything Wlad can dish out, and had reasonably fast hands and could string together good combos. If he got up close and got a chance to go to work you might have another Purrity/Sanders/Brewster situation.

Not sure how Vitali would do, he's not as good on the technical boxing side as his brother, which is the best weapon to use against Chuvalo. However, he can take a punch far, far better than Wlad. Should be a war. Vitali may well come out on top, but gets tested big time.

I haven't watched enough of Bonavena to give an educated opinion, so I'm not going to say anything there.

London and Cooper have no chance. Well, London has no chance. Cooper's only chance is if Wlad gets up real close to him and leaves himself wide open to a Cooper left hook with his chin hanging out. So, effectively no chance for Sir Henry.

Due to Floyd's speed and punching power, he has the potential to get lucky with the right punch against Wlad.